B'eauPal Stunt- The World's Finest Water Aged 25 Years

25 years of finely aged water, with toxins leached from the world's most notorious chemical disaster, served fresh to Londonites and delivered to the doorstep of Dow Chemicals.

The Yes Men, International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, and the Bhopal Medical Appeal bring you none other than B'eauPal.

Watch this video of the B'eauPal stunt in London.


Learn more about the stunt here:

His Dataset Will Change Your Mindset

Hans Rosling, global health expert and data visionary, has dozens of eye-opening talks available at Gap Minder. Watch them and let his dataset change your mindset.

His most recent presentation in Nov. 2009 at TED India talks about Asia's Rise. Watch the video here:

In the summer of 2009 he spoke at the US State Department showing the overall global trends in health and income over the last 200 years, the development of the HIV/AIDS-epidemic, and how China is catching up on the richest countries.
Enjoy this video below.


TED writes that "Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. A professor of global health at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, his current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which (he points out) is no longer worlds away from the west. In fact, most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did.

What sets Rosling apart isn't just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way he presents them. Guaranteed: You've never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling's hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus.

Rosling's presentations are grounded in solid statistics (often drawn from United Nations data), illustrated by the visualization software he developed. The animations transform development statistics into moving bubbles and flowing curves that make global trends clear, intuitive and even playful. During his legendary presentations, Rosling takes this one step farther, narrating the animations with a sportscaster's flair.

Rosling developed the breakthrough software behind his visualizations through his nonprofit Gapminder, founded with his son and daughter-in-law. The free software — which can be loaded with any data — was purchased by Google in March 2007."

Ideas Worth Spreading at TED India

"We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other."

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) hosted their first-ever gathering in India at the Infosys campus in Mysore on November 4-7th, 2009. It offered a fast-paced, highly curated three-day stage program featuring the famous 18-minute TED talks. These talks will open your eyes and drop your jaw in mind-expanding ways. Below I highlight some of my favorite TED India talks. You can access most of the TED India talks here.

*Pranav Mistry, MIT grad student prodigy and inventor of the SixthSense technology, shows his wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data. Watch him showcase this technology in the talk below.

If you want to see another video about applications of Sixthsense Technology see this video.

*Ryan Lobo, Indian filmmaker and photographer, speaks about "compassionate storytelling" sharing photographs that tell stories of unusual human lives. In this talk, he reframes controversial subjects with empathy, so that we see the pain of a Liberian war criminal, the quiet strength of Indian UN women peacekeepers stationed in Liberia, and the perseverance of Delhi's underappreciated firefighters. See more of his photography at his blog. Watch the video of his moving TED talk below.



*Hans Rosling, global health expert and data visionary, talks about Asia's Rise with a mind boggling data presentation. Watch the video here: 

"I like my Women like my Laptops-Light and Slim"

White Skin and Size Zero Sells in India

How often do you find an Indian with lighter skin tone than a Japanese? When it comes to product marketing and the Indian media, more often than is statistically likely.

                                                          Image from Getty Images.

Bollywood Actress Kareena Kapoor (right) and Managing Director of Sony India Masaru Tamagawa  (left) pose with Sony's lightest weight and ultra slim VAIO X notebook after the launch in New Delhi on November 3, 2009. This notebook is a half-inch thin and 655 grams and is being marketed as a size Zero.

“I am proud to be India’s size Zero.” News4u-Entertainment Desk reports Kareena saying “I only lend my name to a brand that is suitable to my personality type. Vaio X is slim, stylish and sexy, something that I easily relate with.”

     “I think in India, size zero means being slim. Every girl wants to be really slim and I think I am quite slim. India’s size zero is associated with me and I am proud of that,” said Kareena who has often denied being the size zero according to international standards. The 27-year-old actress hit headlines when she lost eight kilograms to acquire a bikini body for the 2007 film ‘Tashan’. Though the film flopped at the box office, Kareena’s thin figure became the talk of the country, sparking a size zero trend in India.

     If Indian men aren’t already telling their friends the following, such media is only likely to encourage it: “I like my women like my laptops-light and slim.”

I’ve always been frustrated seeing Billboards in developing countries where the women are absurdly thinner and whiter than the actual local population. This soft cultural hegemony infiltrates the minds of the young and old redefining beauty and in some instances leading to pathologically low self-esteem and eating disorders. When I scan the Indian newspaper matrimonial sections (not for myself, for cultural research purposes I swear!), I frequently find “fair-skinned” as mandatory inclusion criteria.  

If we conducted a study were we used a photospectrometer or some melanin detection device to quantify the lightness of a person’s skin, we would see that the stars who grace the magazine covers and Bollywood films are several standard deviations away from the average Indian. India’s largest cultural export, Bollywood films, is a gross misrepresentation of the average Indian, but perhaps the same can be said of many industries.  Tobacco companies have long used "light and slim" in association with women to market cigarettes. For some reason, living in Tamil Nadu where people are dark skinned, and seeing “India” exported through film, advertising, and beauty pageants I struggle with how this country “sells” its beauty and skin color. Having lived in Latin America, I am used to people being typecasted into “blanca” “morena” or “negra” based on minute differences in skin tone. However, the exported image of India seems more out of touch with the reality of India.